La! It’s December. I know what December used to be like it. It used to be the slow, languorous lead up to Christmas. Back when I was single I completely escaped any responsibility for organizing anything. All I had to do was buy some presents, put in some $$s to cover costs and show up. Bliss. That meant that most of December was a gentle parade of parties and get-togethers, leading up to a period of prolonged self-indulgence interspersed with bloated relaxation. Bliss.

Well, it ain’t like that anymore, baby. I grew up a bit, I got married (happily) and had children (delightfully), and I also got a lot more work. A lot. Now a usual December is a period when I’m worried about getting the house together for the annual gathering of the clans, unsure if I’ll have time to see people, and completely stumped over what to get the ones I love for Christmas.

Or, that’s the usual December. This December is some sort of mad Quantum Mega December. I completely blew my project management specs for this year. Completely. I won’t bore you with the details (again), but basically I said yes to a lot of things and for one reason or another they all seem due now. Yay! I mean, it’s GOOD. It is. I love these projects. But I’ve got all the deadlines, plus we had two weddings, an end-of-term show, a possible car replacement, etc etc. I feel like I’m struggling to survive December, and the darn thing is just racing away from me.

That doesn’t mean things are bad. Not at all. They’re demanding, but not bad. Following from the happy thanksgiving moment the other weekend in the USA a lot of folk are doing ‘what I’m thankful for you’ or ‘what was great in 2009’ posts. I’d like to do something similar. I hope to. We’ll see.

Well, I’ve just delivered my fifteenth year’s best annual, and fourth in this current series, to my publisher Night Shade Books. There’s copyedits and stuff to do, but those should happen quickly as it’s due out in March. It’s a relief to get it done, and three days early. I will, as promised, post the ToC here shortly but am just waiting to clarify one or two more details. It shouldn’t be more than a day or so, though.

The nice people at Booklist have just published this review for Eclipse Three, which made me feel rather shiny.

Eclipse Three.

Strahan, Jonathan (editor).

Dec. 2009. 304p. Night Shade, paperback, $14.95 (9781597801621).
REVIEW. First published December 1, 2009 (Booklist).

In a brilliant, wide-ranging anthology, Strahan presents stories by authors as diverse as Karen Joy Fowler, Elizabeth Bear, and Paul Di Filippo. Ellen Klages contributes “Lotion,“ a story about imaginary numbers and the strange powers of math, in which a young girl discovers the magical potential of pure math. Ellen Kushner’s “Dolce Domum” is, perhaps, not about what its characters think it is. Bear’s “Swell” is a fairy tale about a musician seeking her voice, in which a mermaid’s gift is not as wonderful as at first glance it seems. Molly Gloss’ “The Visited Man” presents a lonely pensioner who lives upstairs from le douanier Rousseau and the relationship that develops after the painter brings the retiree a stray cat. As for the previous Eclipse anthologies, Strahan has picked stories whose authors care about both the craft of storytelling and the stories they tell. Each piece is distinctive and haunting.

I know I only slept five hours, but I jumped (well staggered) out of bed on Saturday morning and headed direct for the ‘to do’ list. I needed to read, review or write twenty-nine bio notes for the stories in the year’s best, write the introduction, compile my first ever recommended reading list, assemble the manuscript, review/re-write the introduction to the Australian fantasy antho, get the last stories in, review the bio notes for it, read some stories, and get the Locus reviews edited. Along the way I had to make lunch and dinner, and attend ‘Family Movie Night’.

Because I am a machine(!), almost all of this was done by 9pm last night. A good day was had by all, a near-complete version of the manuscripts for both books was achieved, and all the cooking and family stuff was done. I’m kinda impressed.

This morning I did a little editing, then headed out for a swim with the kids. It went well and I feel good as a result. Next dim sum, then home to read those stories and do the Locus edits. If I can get those done, and some ironing, then this weekend was for the win!

It also means the next weekend I can attend the kids day out on Saturday and spend Sunday processing the copyedits for the swords and sorcery book. The following weekend will be the Mars book, and the weekend after that is Christmas. What a year!

Well, for reasons I can’t quite put a finger on, I’ve just spent a little while looking at my commitments and it rather looks like I’m going to have a lot of books out in 2010. Fourteen in fact, which sort of staggers me. Should all go to plan – and quite often things don’t – I’ll have five original anthologies, two reprint anthologies, and no less than seven single-author collections. There will also be a 60,000 word special issue of Subterranean Magazine, which will be out in April.

For those of you following along at home, these are the books:

Original anthologies

1. Eclipse Four
2. Godlike Machines (long -delayed, but coming!)
3. Legends of Australian Fantasy (co-edited with Jack Dann)
4. Phantasmagoria and Madness: Tales from the Steampunk Century (co-edited with Bill Shafer)
5. Swords and Dark Magic: The New Sword & Sorcery (a major book co-edited with Lou Anders)

Reprint anthologies

1. The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume 4
2. Wings of Fire

Single author collections edited by me

1. Mirror Kingdoms: The Best of Peter S. Beagle
2. The Best of Joe Haldeman (co-edited with Gary K. Wolfe)
3. Fritz Leiber: Selected Stories 1950-1983 (co-edited with Charles N. Brown)
4. The Best of Larry Niven
5. The Best of Kim Stanley Robinson
6. Hard Luck Diggings: The Early Jack Vance (co-edited with Terry Dowling)
7. The Green Leopard Plague and Other Stories, Walter Jon Williams